Little Lotte Penned a Letter
by elisedaae
Summary: She sends him the simplest of explanations, yet words alone hold the destructive power to break his heart. Raoul POV, oneshot. R/C angst.


This is based on no adaptation in particular, but I really love Raoul and I need to write him more. This is my take on Raoul's reaction to Christine's rejection, as inspired by the original novel but not placed in that particular scope. (This isn't like an endgame piece or anything, but would be occurring shortly after Christine's debut. It features a lot of my headcannons about Christine and Raoul's childhood, which in my view spanned longer and was more intimate and special than most versions allot. (I posted a lengthy thing about my take on Raoul on Tumblr) Ignore any inaccuracies as they are most likely due to my different interpretation of the character. I'd appreciate all the advice I can get so please review!

* * *

My fingers cannot stop feeling the edges of tainted parchment. As if feel alone could salve the wounds inside. A smile formed upon my face at the thought. There was once a time when these same little notes were sent between two children with tidbits of jokes and secret delight. Smuggled through a servant's duty, placed in an alcove beneath the rock in front of a cabin by the sea. Once, I had dared to climb the walls to the window sill and tucked it beneath the hard glass before I'd taken a nasty fall—

Memories and their ends combining together into the overcoming melancholy which was killing me.

I dared to look upon the soiled paper again, feeling the moisture which had fallen from my eyes upon its surface. The tears of a boy. A weakling.

The ink was dripping, and I gasped, shuddered and then coughed miserably as another sob lodged in my throat. I had ruined it...her final gift, maybe her final words. Written, unspoken, but precious in their existence. It did not matter how much pain they brought.

 _Dear Raoul_

… " _I do wish to see you again, but father is ill and I cannot leave his side. It pains me, for I know if I were to leave him, I would only feel sorrow. But to be alone is so dreadful! I miss you_ …"

 _So much_.

It seems my mind cannot read what is real anymore. For the note in front of me grasped between two fingers did not contain those words of comfort or care. Another letter had, in another time, one that was slowly fading from what I conceived to be reality. I had read this figurative letter in my thoughts a hundred times over eight years as I missed her. Her name had been nothing but a ghost from the past that had disappeared from the earth. Christine Daaé. It was so simple and wondrously elegant all at once. Like an angel from tales of old; a whimsical title crafted by the gods.

Like a dear _friend_ that I missed with every bit of my aching heart.

I turned my head from the crushing message in my hands, and dared to look up at the window. Fading light from the autumn sky was shining gray into the space of which I was the lone occupant. _Thankfully._ I was terrified that Phillipe or a servant would discover my current state. I could not bear to be alone, but I also did not want to be with another. This ineffable contradiction caused the throb in my head to worsen. I had bolted the door, but any knocking would mean putting on an act and pretending I was unbothered. The thought of dealing with business or the pressure of my elder brother— in name only —sickened my stomach.

I longed to rise from my place upon the wooden floorboards and collapse into bed, to shut out the entire world, to damn it all! But I refused to do so. I could not leave the ground until I made sense of everything. If I could just somehow understand what went through Christine's mind and heart as she wrote…

 _I cannot explain, but you must never attempt to see me again._

These cold, damning words could not have been from her. No, no, they could not! She had always been so kind! I had never doubted that we were the best of friends, the closest! We had been kindred souls as children, inseparable until fate had intervened. She had accepted me and seen my failings in a way no one ever had! She had been so sincere even long ago...what could have changed her?

 _Christine_

Christine, why? Oh, why! Why do you not wish to see me? Do I offend you? What could I have done to make you want me gone? Have you forgotten me, am I truly so insignificant?

A selfish feeling welled up inside me along with newly found tears. It was because of me, what I am, what I've always been.

Not good enough.

There is always something wrong with me. Why can I not be like Phillipe? I know I cannot ever have his title, his legitimacy, his bond with our father, his success or candor. I have known this for so long it has been driven into me more keenly than any other lesson I'd been taught in all my years. But, if I could just have his strength and resolve, his character. If I could be half the man he is, perhaps Christine, and all the rest in my life that had spurned me, would see me as what I longed to be.

This was not the first time I'd been intensely jealous of Phillipe.

I almost laughed when I remembered that day long ago, when we were kids, and I had first begun to know Christine. I had managed to invite her and her father to our summer residence by the sea. Her father was an acclaimed local violinist, and my own father had always been an avid lover of the arts. As soon as I'd met Christine, her father's profession had been a talking point to have them in our home. She had been at my side as I eagerly made a fool of myself, showing her everything and telling her the tales of a happy childhood, as if she wanted to know! She had laughed, smiled, been delighted then...when she met Phillippe, I had seen the admiration in her eyes. She had developed some sort of girlish fancy for him.

I had raved about it, sulked and mumbled and made a spoiled nuisance of myself for weeks. Christine had humored me nonetheless. We played together, I tried to impress her. Of course, Phillipe went back to the naval school and her tryst was soon forgotten, but I had never disavowed my first envious gilt from a girl. The only girl I ever cared for… _.loved._

I had devoted myself to her then, and now I was as lovesick as ever. I must be an incomparable idiot! I was the same ten year old boy now, at three and twenty! Of course Phillipe was not in the picture, no man vied for Christine's attentions against me. I was not pitted against some other lover in her life. She was simply grown up beyond me, transformed, and I was where she ought to rightfully be in my own mind. The past.

The past was so difficult to forget. It always had been for me, especially after I learned the truth of my origins and my rightful place in this world...something I still struggled with discovering. Christine represented a happier time, one of innocence and youth and joy before everything fell apart. And yet after that, after years apart and the revelations I've had of the bitter world and its consequences, I should be bitter! But I hold onto her like a dream, grasping at that one element of the past that promises a better future.

A promise...a hope born from a single, cherished moment. Perhaps the most meaningful in all my life that I had clung to out of desperation until I saw her again.

It is the same every time I am fortunate enough to relive it...

…..

I walked from my house in the evening while everyone had retired to the parlor. They do not miss me; I ignored this because I only wished to be with another. I had just returned for the summer and I'd seen her a few times. She was older, and even more beautiful than I remembered. We were both growing up, and for the first time in the years I'd known her, I had actually felt something stirring in our encounter. This was not merely the brotherly protective streak I held for her, the jovial friendship, or the childhood adoration I'd always possessed.

Perhaps it was because I was fifteen, now old enough to begin to understand what attraction was. I'd been around others my age, more experienced and knowledgeable than myself, at naval school the preceding year. I'd started to become a man, and I was immediately aware that Christine was strikingly becoming a woman. She was still very small for her age, as always. Yet she had changed so much within one annum!

She must have been around thirteen or so. Her hair had never been so luscious and silken as I had glimpsed it then! Her eyes held this sort of maturity and radiance, promising details that I had never noticed before! Her cheeks had grown to a rose color at our reunion. The freckles had begun to disappear from her face; her body had changed...acutely. She was taller, and shapelier, I dared to realize. I was convinced right then that she would be the _object d'amour_ of many other fellows soon.

 _Other_ fellows. I was unworthy of making such a claim, but alas! It could not be helped. In my heart she had always been mine.

This thought entered my mind as I descended upon the sandy shore. The night was cool, but it was nearly autumn so I was not surprised. I'd forgotten to bother with a coat, and feeling rather foolish I considered, but I did not return home. I didn't really know where I was going. Perhaps just clearing my mind in the crisp air, allowing the salt water to cleanse some sort of fire inside of me. The burden of maturity and a growing awareness of my situation in life. Frustration, long pent up and now made evident as soon as I had seen Christine.

I had the strangest worry during our short meeting that she was suddenly so above me. I was just another gangly young man. She probably had met many since I'd last left, perhaps even grown out of our friendship that had been built so long upon inequality.

She is beautiful and kind, sweet, the most attractive and delightful person I've ever met. I am Raoul. Not too tall, woefully thin. Sickly, to be sure, and not in any way vigorous enough to keep up with her curiosity and sense of adventure. I am uninteresting, foolish, and there are so many that could be more fascinating companions than myself. (It seems time has not changed this truth) The only advantage I have over her is a name and a wearisome title. I am inconsequential.

I did not walk for long before I found that I was not alone. Out on the dock beneath the finer homes above stood a figure that was all too familiar. Curiosity took over and I walked towards her, knowing what I will find and yet unsure how to explain myself for the intrusion.

Her hair, whipping around her face as the salty air flows towards us from the waves, and bites at my bare face. Her back was to me, yet I am overcome with the mystique of this apparition. I walk closer, she was like a siren calling to me and I was enraptured.

As I approach she heard me, and she turned around, and I see the moonlight glint on her eyes.

"Raoul, you startled me," she says softly, and somehow I could still hear her above the waves. She was wise, unlike me. She wore a coat and her red scarf concealed the lower half of her face. Her eyes were still striking.

"Sorry," I say nonchalantly, kicking at a pebble on the dock. "What are you doing out here by yourself?"

"Thinking."

" _Little Lotte let her mind wander…_ " I begin.

She laughed slightly. "Oh, stop! You will never let me forget those rhymes and then they will be in my head for the rest of the night!"

" _De rien,_ " I grinned.

"What about you, then? Why have you come out here?"

"Oh, you know. Naval training has tied me to the sea. She's my mistress."

She laughed. "Oh! You are so bad!"

"I'm only teasing. I hear things like that all the time at the academy, though."

"Do you like it?"

"No, I find them rather crass."

"No, I mean the naval school." She hugged her arms to her chest.

"I detest it."

"Really?"

"Yes, it's boring as tombs! But it gets me away from father and Philippe."

"You wish to be away from them?"

"Hey, you know I've always hated being around them when they quarrel. I don't love confrontations."

"Ah, no you don't." I could tell she was smiling. "I recall you running from me every time we argue!"

"I've never been strong enough to best the fiery Christine, I'm afraid…. She always overpowers me."

Something in her eyes as she locked on mine told me infinitely more than a reply would. She averted her glance suddenly, redirecting my thoughts. "You are, though. You aren't afraid of the sea."

"Well, after that near death experience last year, I've had to overcome it."

"Do not tease! I still feel terrible! All for a scarf," she laughed with delight, genuine care…

"Yes, an important scarf! It was from your mother."

"I know...Raoul?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't think I ever properly thanked you for that."

"No, you just cried when you thought I was dead or gravely ill. And then you said "I'm so glad you are well" a thousand times when you were brought to my bedside!" I did my best at imitating her voice in jest, and her eyebrows furrowed, big brown eyes betraying her delight.

"Yes, well...I thank you, truly, sir," she said with a mock curtsey, her knees bending as she somehow managed to retain balance with her crossed arms.

"Sir? I am not so grown yet!" I laughed.

"Oh, but you are! I hardly recognized you when I saw you yesterday!"

"Really? Well I knew you instantly."

"Yes?"

"Of course. You don't look like other girls—that is...I should probably cease talking right now."

"Why is that?"

"Because I will say something dreadfully awkward and then you will never let me live it down!" I laughed nervously.

I saw her avert her eyes and almost thought her to be blushing. I held my breath a moment, watching her gaze out at the rippling ocean.

"I believe you have not yet answered my question, Christine."

"What question?" she turned back to me

"The one, just know, when I asked whatever you are _really_ doing out here."

"...Father is not doing well," she whispered, and I heard the sorrow on her tone instantly.

"What?"

"I'm afraid, Raoul. He looks fine, he gets about, but I am terrified, terrified that it is all a show put on for me so I do not worry. I've seen the grave looks from his doctor and the sudden silent moments that he has when he thinks he's alone. Oh, I may just be imagining things, but I fear I'm not! He coughs more! He stays in bed for the whole day sometimes or just stays in his study reading. He gets tired, he feels weak...I can see it."

"...Christine, you'll be fine. He loves you, you love him. I've never seen the kind of adoration that you have. Sometimes I wish I had half so much in my life."

She turned to me suddenly, the emotion written in her gaze as it was now I averting my eyes.

"Oh, Raoul, I didn't mean to—what is troubling you, dearest?"

I looked up to her once more, seeing such a striking amount of feeling in her eyes, and I was speechless. I could not find words; I just want to keep looking in her eyes forever and allow them to absorb me entirely. "I...it's nothing. Just family dramatics. I am being a fool, actually."

"No. You're never so. You are kind, and brave. _My best and dearest friend,_ " her whisper of a voice chilled me at such affection, and a surge of hope as she went on. "It is remarkable. We can be apart for a year and yet each time we are together it's like time never passed at all. It defies everything, even now when the Raoul I look at has grown so much over the past year, and he seemed so different and I was afraid he was gone, but...I am so glad he is here."

I smiled then, and was more hopeful than I'd ever felt in all my life. The strangest sensation filled me, and I longed for it to never end.

"I was too. I knew it was you, of course, but...you've changed too, Christine. I remember when we were kids, and I decided that you were the most beautiful girl I'd ever laid eyes on. It turns out that I was pretty wise, even as a nine year old, in my choice."

"Your choice?" her small voice whispered.

"You won't believe me, but I decided I loved you the day I met you. I wanted to be your suitor, and I'd go about in my head how to propose marriage actually. I was ridiculous. But I guess it's one of the few things in my life that I've ever done correctly." I dared to walk forward, closing the distance between us as she looked up at with me with both apprehension and the longing of youth.

"Raoul...you're not serious?"

"I am, but I expect you to laugh."

" _Laugh_?"

"Oh yes, I am sure you are laughing right now! Smiling with triumph over your stupid friend!"

"I am not, _monsieur._ I assure you."

"Monsieur? When did I earn such a title?"

"When you grew two feet and towered above me as you do now!"

"You're mocking me!"

"No, I detest that accusation."

"Oh yes?" I grinned, tugging the scarf from her face and revealing the smile beneath that froze instantly, turning in astonishment as her eyes met mine.

"Ah ha! I knew it! You were amused by my shortcomings and you thought you could fool me otherwise. I commend you for your attempt, _Little Lotte_ , but really I am not as dumb as I appear!"

"You are not," she whispered, staring into my eyes with that odd look again, and I was frozen beneath her gaze.

And then, she moved closer, so close that I felt her breathing on my neck and her tentative eyes upon my own, as they fluttered closed and she pressed her lips to mine.

….

It was back then that I realized that I never wanted to be anything more than her protector, her companion forever. I wanted to shelter her from any threat, hold her closely and never let her go, and even though I was a naive and youthful child, I must have never changed. For the same wish is undyingly resilient even now, fighting against penned words upon a flimsy piece of paper.

How long had I been staring at it? Hours, probably. Time was irrelevant. When I had received the letter I had left the opera house instantly, I was screaming internally to be away from the crowd and everyone around me so that I could somehow process what I could not believe I'd read.

Maybe I should have known, known from the moment we'd met again, that she was only being amiable and good. Her hints should have been enough. She obviously didn't want to join me for dinner, or to remake our acquaintance, or remember anything about our old times. I had been ever the idiot and persisted, and I was still the fool lying on the ground, crying to himself like a child.

It had only taken one moment of watching her on stage and hearing her wondrous voice for me to know it was she. My heart had leapt from my seat in the box as hope returned, and I reached for it like the inane boy I am. I entertained my imagination and the belief that she missed me equally and would smile when she saw me, and laugh, and be delighted.

How much it ached. I wanted to crumble that piece of paper! Send it flying across the wall, in a fit of rage, I wanted to scream! I am not a violent soul, I never have been. I've been teased and mocked for me gentility, fragile nature, and sickly tendencies...weakness. Now I wanted to damn it all with fury and malice, and I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I stared down at the note, breathing heavily, willing my arms to crush it...but they relented, shaking, as they released the note and let it flutter to the floor.

How could I hurt anything _she_ had created.

There was no knock to signal his entry, the door simply slammed open and Philippe entered the room. I looked up in shame, instantly rubbing my face and standing upon wobbly legs, walking over to the window seat and turning away.

He was taken aback. "Raoul, what is this?"

I did not reply for several seconds, wiping my nose again to clear away the mess of tears. "Nothing. I thought you were going off on business?"

"It's been delayed. I was about to attend the gala at the opera and thought you'd want to go along and see that girl of yours."

"She is not mine…" I whisper, realizing everything. "She never was."

"Is she the meaning of all of this?"

I bowed my head, unwilling to hear Philippe berate the penniless girl that I adore.

"Raoul. You cannot get overtaken by one girl. She is meaningless. I always feared you would meet some sort of fate like this. You should simply forget about her. Opera girls are never the types to form commitment with."

"What of you and la Sorelli?"

"She is essentially a distraction. You must know that I cannot ever marry her. Just as you will not marry the Daaé girl." He walked over and placed a cold, sturdy hand on my small shoulders.

"If she rejected you then she is as worthless as I've always believed. You are above her, Raoul. I would not even concern yourself with bedding her. Come, let's go and get your mind off of this mess."

"You go ahead. I'm feeling... tired."

He began to walk away, I still felt his gaze upon me. Then, he doubled back from the doorway and gripped my hand. "Come with me."

"Philippe…"

Before I know it, he pulled me down the hall and toward the study, seating me at the table and opening the curtains to the night view of Paris and her splendor.

"I'm not hungry, really. Go enjoy yourself with your friends. Don't worry about me."

"I cannot help but worry. With your eyes all red and swollen like that, God knows she must have had a claim on you for quite some time. I thought you'd forgotten her long ago."

"...No." _Never._

He walked over to the cabinet and then slammed a bottle down on the table. I was brought from the dull expression of weariness to sudden alarm as I realized his purpose.

"I don't drink."

"Nonsense. There is only one way to brave through that damnable entity that is heartache."

I looked down at the table, tracing the lines of the wood. Lines of wood, cracks on floor, tears in parchment. Words streaked delicately across a paper, familiar and beautiful and then deafening and destructive. Politeness concealing disinterest. Indifference more painful than rejection. My head swarmed with confliction until, against my better judgement, I abandon myself to fate.

"That's better. Drink a few glasses, and then come with me. We don't even have to go to the opera. There's a state dinner at the baron's this night. Might be more suitable than the wild lights and festivities at the _Garnier_."

"If you don't mind, I'd rather stay at home if I am to be.. _.drunk_."

He smiled beneath weathered, hard features, a look of amusement beneath a cold exterior. "Very well, I won't let you make a fool of yourself there anyways."

My eyes were downcast, and I lifted the full glass to my lips.

"Not when there is something I can do about it, I mean. You may not be able to hold liquor well, but you'll learn in time."

It is incredulous, I feel sick, but I nod and allow a slight smile at a rare showing of affection from family I did not know I had anymore.

"Thank you, Philippe."

He nodded, then fetched his cloak and bid me a better evening.

I was gullible, but the whiskey, scotch...whatever it was, I had not the slightest idea of how to tell, began to alleviate things a little. I settled back in the chair before retrieving the worn letter from my pockets and thinking about things in a realm of more figurative ideas.

Memories overtook me more than the pain, and I was not happy, but I was nostalgic. My eyes wouldn't leave Lotte's note, only faded from vision and into thought from time to time.

 _Raoul…_

 _Yes, Lotte?_

 _I didn't know you could kiss._

 _Me neither._

 _Raoul._

 _Christine?_

 _Please don't ever leave._

My eyes drifted from the paper to her name, and suddenly I was filled with an indescribable worry...or fear. I have never been strong, and I was now frightened. The voice I thought I heard in her room, the calling out which I'd dismissed...and now this note.

A note that did not seem real...and maybe it was my own unwillingness to let her go, but I thought I imagined that her written name did not look as it always did...could there have been a rush to her hand as she wrote this note? I remembered the strange look in her eyes. My own met the bottle on the table and I looked inside, then out the window toward the endless horizon and the direction of the opera.

She was there...and there was something very wrong.

I stood shaking, my head pounding with the inevitable pain I'd be facing later for all this, and I felt very weak and foolish. How selfish I was! Despairing to myself for losing her, when _she_ needed someone now, perhaps more than ever! Christine was a woman, but she still needed a protector, even if she didn't know it yet. She deserved a hero.

I was not one, and never would be. But if I could be anything for her, I would try.


End file.
